New wicking boxes

Here are my nine new wicking boxes for the coming season’s planting:

Unfortunately, I only had enough compost to fill seven of the boxes, so the remaining two are acting as rainwater storages for the time being. I’ve put them all up on polystyrene fruit boxes to keep them above rabbit-browsing height and before the summer sets in, I’ll put in some polypipe arches to carry shadecloth in case we get any more of those nasty 40-plus temperatures this year.

I’ve sown radish seed into some of the boxes as a quick filler, but mostly they’ll be used for french beans and capsicums when the weather warms. I also sowed purple bok choy into one of the boxes and it has been joined by dozens of lettuce and celery seedlings which germinated from seeds in the compost. These will make a useful harvest for salads:

Noisy Miners should really be called ‘nosey miners’. They follow me everywhere, showing great interest in what I’m doing: